The travel brochure Hunter had picked up wasn’t lying when it said birds didn’t exist in Orkash.

  Not because they had gone extinct—no, some poor creatures still existed, but they weren’t stupid enough to stay. The moment a fledgling so much as stretched its wings, it was met with a thick, choking sky, the kind that clung to lungs and left metal tasting on the tongue. The city’s perpetual green haze wasn’t just unsightly; it was dense, suffocating, a soup of industrial byproducts and synthetic compounds engineered to settle in the air like an artificial atmosphere.

  Back against the outer wall of the warehouse, she craned her head to look at the foggy sky. Every so often, a distant plume of factory exhaust curled upward, only to be swallowed whole by the murky haze, as if the columns of smoke were an e-cig and the sky was a seasoned smoker.

  If Hunter was given time, she would’ve picked up a local guidebook from a physical bookshop. She didn’t have some poetic, thought-provoking reason for preferring paper books over holo-letters on a floating screen, though she did try to come up with one in case anyone would ever ask. She just liked the feeling of holding something real in her hands.

  That was why she was holding the latest iteration of space cigarette in her hands. The E-Mote. The manufacturers thought they were clever with the name, but it came off as colossally cringey and edgy to her. Nonetheless, it was one of the cheaper brands of neurostimulant. Nicotine had been phased out over two hundred years ago after Haret manufacturers realized they couldn’t afford to lobby across star systems, and releasing microdoses of electromagnetic neurostimulants directly absorbed through the mouth or nasal lining was more or less a healthier option anyway.

  It was the 2700s, the century of ultra-convenience. Everything was seamless, instant, and if you had the credits, neurally integrated—information, entertainment, even emotions beamed directly into your brain with a thought. No more screens, no more typing, no more waiting.

  Did you need to learn a new language? Download it. Want to experience the latest blockbuster? Stream it straight into your visual cortex. Feeling anxious? A quick neural tweak could smooth out your emotions like flipping a switch.

  Or at least that was what she heard. Twelve years since she started a new chapter of her life outside of Haret, and she still had yet saved up enough money to plug music into her brain. So she used earphones.

  Her auto-shuffler played “All the Time in the World.”

  It started with soft synths swelling like the sigh of an old machine, layered over the occasional static, like spark from the grid, a dying signal searching for connection. The lyrics came in, murmured rather than sung, the voice hushed and weary. Admittedly, Hunter had trouble understanding most of the lyrics.

  She put the E-Mote on her lips and inhaled. It glowed an artificial fire like a flashbulb.

  The hit slammed into her like a power surge—sharp, immediate, unforgiving. Her mind froze, glitched. Stalled for a fraction of a second before snapping into overdrive. It had been too long since the last time, and her body wasn’t ready. Then, just as suddenly, everything snapped back, her thoughts hyper-focused, reality sharpening to a razor’s edge.

  A human voice, clearer than most of the lyrics, reached her ears. “Your mind outta the Milky Way yet, Hunter?” This was definitely not part of the song.

  Hunter turned to see Gravel walking over. His fashion sense only had two modes: illuminated, or scruffed beyond belief. For this mission, he’d chosen the latter. His jacket, once black, had faded into a dull charcoal, stretched just enough to hint at the body beneath but not enough to look intentional. A half-shadow of stubble lined his jaw, reminding her to remind him to shave later. He’d turned her into a convenient walking reminder alarm for his little habits, like keeping his gear maintained, eating something that wasn’t vacuum-sealed, and, apparently, shaving before he started looking like a washed-up bounty poster.

  “I haven’t seen you touch that in what? A year? Two years?”

  “That’s because I don’t smoke in public. There’s nowhere quite private enough here, though,” she replied.

  “Care to share?” Gravel asked with a stupid grin plastered on his face.

  “Get your own,” she said, without a hint of annoyance. She knew him enough to know he was asking just for the sake of asking. “So . . . we’re going with Priest’s plan?”

  Gravel shrugged. “His plan is better than mine.”

  “Your plan was a joke though, right?”

  He shrugged again. “Fang was spiralling. Priest didn’t bother hiding his frustration. You were silent. Someone had to say something.”

  For all his shenanigans, Gravel was unusually sharp at reading the room. She knew he knew something was up with her. He had been trying to catch Hunter alone, and she had been well aware of it ever since she walked away from him in the common lounge. She knew what he was going to ask, but what she didn’t know was what answer she was going to give to his question.

  So she hit him with a question of her own before he could strike, “Where do you think all the metals go?”

  “Huh?”

  “Vascarite. Where do you think it all go?”

  The planet’s main export was Vascarite, a dense, heat-resistant metal prized for starship hulls and high-grade weapon casings. Extracting it meant deep-cracking the planet’s crust. But if they were exporting so much Vascarite, to the point she could barely see the sun setting, where did all the metals go? One in ten ships she saw had Vascarite on its hull, and the Black Fang certainly didn’t have any.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He flicked his two fingers together in a movement that looked like snapping, but it made no sound. Sometimes he would start doing that, then keep doing that for no reason. Hunter figured that his body just needed something to do.

  He said, “No idea. Maybe the buyers are hoarding supply because they’re planning something shady. Where do you think all the other Morkanium users went, then? They all vanished after the last time I met that stone-face ass on Haret.” He sucked in more air than he should’ve, and made a hissing sound. After all those years, Gravel probably still hadn’t gotten over having his past life taken away from him.

  Just like how she still quite hadn’t gotten over leaving Haret.

  The ‘stone-face ass’ he referred to was Dr. Stein, who was supposed to be the wanted criminal, the illegal Morkanium extractor, and the primary reason why Gravel was stuck with this power he didn’t ask for in the first place. But the good doctor managed to pin the crime on Gravel, and got off the planet soon afterwards. Gravel had heard nothing about him since then.

  Hunter pondered for a moment then said, “I guess sometimes we should be satisfied with a simple ‘I don’t know’.”

  Gravel squatted down, then took out a mock beer from his jacket pocket. He’d been drinking less, replacing his alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic substitutes since a year back. Some doctor on Enzo told him his liver was gearing up for a mutiny.

  Gravel hated doctors, and to this day, he still cracked open a real cold one for every time he saw an actual doctor in person.

  The first thing he said after he took the first sip was, “Warm beer sucks.” The second thing he said was, “Say, you regretting being part of this crew again?”

  The way he delivered it seemed too casual, like he was asking her if she wanted sushi for dinner.

  “You saved my life, Rhyan,” she murmured. She tried to put the E-Mote on her mouth again, but mistakenly stuck it on her chin instead.

  “Wasn’t what I asked.” His fingers started tapping on the side of the can instead of flicking against each other.

  She ran out of things to say.

  “You remember when we climbed the stairs yesterday? Your reaction time was . . . concerning, to say the least. It might cost you one of these days,” he continued. She just listened. He said, “What’s wrong, Fel? You’re tough. Fearless. Aggressive. I didn’t see that the last couple days.” His fingers moved faster. “You were aggressive. Now . . .” He took another sip. “You’re just passive-aggressive.”

  Fearless? Yeah, right. The only thing I fear more than fear itself is thinking about my life choices.

  “If you hate me, just say it to my face,” he said. “I can take it.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  Then the conversation sunk into another weird patch of silence, like it’d been devoured by a wormhole.

  She put the E-Mote on her mouth, got it right this time, and inhaled.

  “You don’t hate anything, Fel. You could hit on that guy over there,” he flicked a chin toward a random shadow moving over the distance. Hunter wasn’t sure that was even a person. “You just don’t love anything, either. Tell me the last time you talked to somebody new for more than a week.”

  He was wrong, though. She’d been settling in. Maybe even loving it.

  She had been liking the little tweaks she did to the Black Fang, the constant nagging from Fang for her to do her overdue maintenance, her long, lazy showers that got warmer each month, her nights out with the crew whenever they hit a transit planet, eating real local food. Even the escort missions were great—simple, no bullshit.

  She had enjoyed it anywhere but here, on the ground.

  But not being in action would go against the foundation of everything Gravel stood for.

  She couldn’t tell it to his face. Not to the guy who’d saved her life.

  “Can we do this another time?” she asked.

  “Now’s good a time as any,” he said.

  Hunter exhaled, long and slow. She turned the E-Mote off and tucked it into her jacket pocket, just so she’d have something to do with her hands. A habit she’d just picked up from him.

  “You always do this,” she muttered.

  Gravel raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”

  “This.” She gestured vaguely at him, at the way he sat there like he wasn’t poking a wound she hadn’t even realized was open. “This—‘Hey, Fel, let’s dig up your entire psyche like it’s a shitty backyard and see what we find.’”

  His fingers drummed faster against the can. “And?”

  “And I don’t wanna do this right now.”

  “Then when?”

  Silence.

  Hunter swallowed down the answer Never.

  Gravel stood, throwing his half-empty mock beer on the ground. Tiny white froths clung to the metal, fizzing and popping in the cold air. “Ain’t that funny. You call me your best buddy, and you open up to me less than a black hole opens up to tourists. And I know what you’re about to say. You’re gonna—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Hunter’s voice came out sharper than she had intended. “I’ve known you for years, and I don’t think I’ve heard a single damn thing about your so-called circle of friends before you met me. Hell, do you even have old friends? Or did they all get sucked into that black hole of yours?”

  Gravel’s fingers flicked together again, faster this time. “That’s different.”

  “Oh, is it?” She let out a sharp laugh. “Right, because your past is all tragic and broody and filled with mysterious betrayals, and mine’s just a footnote, huh? Gimme a break. You don’t talk about your past either, but suddenly I’m the problem because I don’t spill my guts over a fake beer?”

  He gave her a long stare, his eyes getting hazier by the second. Then he clicked his tongue. “Fair.”

  “Damn right it’s fair.” Hunter crossed her arms, shifting her weight onto one leg. She bit the inside of her cheek.

  That wasn’t what she wanted to say at all.

  She wanted to say I’m sorry.

  “Good talk,” he started walking with his back turned to her. “Remember the plan Priest’s cooked up. And get it together. It’s for the good of the crew.”

  “Rhyan, I—”

  “It’s fine. It’s all good,” he said. Then he turned the corner and disappeared from her sight.

  The final chorus of the song in Hunter’s earphones resounded. The synths placated, piano notes irradiated, and the last words lingered:

  “We had all the time in the world—

  —and maybe, just maybe, we still do.”

  Then the song faded, leaving only the hum of static once more.